


Hunting High and Low

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Read My Lips [24]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:24:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6306376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: Stargate Atlantis, Any +/ Any, Hunting High and Low (A-Ha).</p><p>  <i>"This is ridiculous," Rodney said, but he was obviously fretting. "How many marines does it take to find one man?"</i></p><p>  <i>"One man who can ask Atlantis to make him invisible on the master life-signs detector and, due to his uncanny connection with Atlantis, can go anywhere and everywhere he wants, whether it's been officially explored or not," Evan pointed out.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting High and Low

"This is ridiculous," Rodney said, but he was obviously fretting. "How many marines does it take to find one man?"  
  
"One man who can ask Atlantis to make him invisible on the master life-signs detector and, due to his uncanny connection with Atlantis, can go anywhere and everywhere he wants, whether it's been officially explored or not," Evan pointed out. But he and Rodney were using the comms to coordinate a security sweep of the city, because John Sheppard had missed breakfast and lunch and dinner was coming soon and no one had seen him.  
  
They'd had Dr. Naoe take advantage of his fairly strong ATA gene expression (he'd come on the most recent wave of expedition members) and his hacking skills and scan the security footage for the past ten hours, but he'd found no sign of Sheppard, only signs that the security footage had been...altered.  
  
"Can you see what was altered?" Rodney asked. "There has to be a way."  
  
"Atlantis doesn't like me like she likes Dr. Sheppard," Naoe said, shrugging. "I could try and duke it out with her, or I could get back to this database algorithm I'm supposed to be working on." Then he smirked. "But I bet if McKay is in mortal peril, Sheppard will come running."  
  
Evan was alarmed when some of the marines eyed Rodney speculatively. "No, that's not an option." He tapped on his radio, asked Amelia to patch him through to the full security team, and told them to fan out, conduct a grid sweep, and check in every ten minutes, starting with team Alpha.  
  
"Have you tried hacking the transporter records?" Rodney asked.  
  
"No, of course not," Naoe said, deadpan. "I have no independent logic of my own."  
  
Rodney huffed. "There's no need for sarcasm."  
  
"Pot, kettle," Naoe said, twirling a pen absently. He turned back to his computer. "I'll keep looking, see if there are power fluctuations in any unusual places. In the meantime go, be men, hunt."  
  
They hunted high and low, checked the walkways between floors that John was known to take advantage of now and again because the life signs detectors didn't read them very well.  
  
It was Gamma team who found John, right when all of the soldiers were cranky and hungry and really, really annoyed at John's ability to make himself completely untraceable.  
  
"Sir, you need to see this," Kleinman said.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"I –" Kleinman was laughing. 

Rodney frowned. "What? What the hell is so funny?"

"Is Dr. Sheppard all right?" Evan asked.

Kleinman managed to choke out coordinates, and Rodney and Evan headed for the nearest transporter.

They emerged at Gamma team's location right before the rest of the search teams arrived, and they stared.

John had found an unused space on the far edges of the city, and he'd gone to considerable effort to spruce it up – big bed, soft-looking sheets, table laid with some kind of candle-lit meal (dishes still covered – where had he found silver dish covers?), and a frankly startling array of sex-toys that had the marines snickering and Evan blushing, because seriously, TMI.

And John had fallen asleep in the middle of the bed, obviously naked but with a sheet pooled modestly about his hips.

There was a piece of paper tacked to the headboard of the bed. It looked like some kind of obscure math equation.

Evan took a deep breath. "Rodney, there wasn't, by some chance, a math equation left for you in your quarters this morning?"

"John had left some of his work on the desk, which was a little unusual – he rarely prints things off, prefers to do his math by hand –"

Evan wanted to bang his head against a wall. "It wasn't his work. Take a closer look at the one above the bed."

Rodney prowled closer, careful not to disturb John, who of course was sleeping through their conversation, and peered at the formula.

"Oh. Hey. It's coordinates."

Evan took a deep breath. "Rodney, I know you're a genius, so I say this with all the respect in my heart, but you're an idiot. John spent a stupidly long time working out a series of math clues to coordinates around the city for some kind of insane scavenger hunt, and you missed the first clue, and now none of us will make it back to the mess hall in time for pumpkin pie."

The fondness with which Rodney gazed at John made Evan seriously reconsider his earlier decision not to bang his head against the wall. He really, really needed to stop answering John's random questions about military protocol, like leaving coordinates to one's location for extraction purposes or other purposes.

Rodney went to shake John's shoulder, and Evan signaled to the marines. Time to move out. Of course John would plan a ridiculously ornate romantic gesture on just another Tuesday in the Pegasus Galaxy. Maybe there'd be some pumpkin pie left after all.


End file.
